DevOps for Windows Azure

"DevOps" (Short for Developer Operations) is one of a group of new terms such as "Cloud", "Big Data" and "Data Scientist" - words that are somewhere between marketing and tasks we've actually had around in other forms for years.However, working in a Distributed Environment (Both on and off premises) like Windows Azure does bring a new set of tasks to the operations we currently perform in Information Technology.

Before I offer some guidance here, I need to carefully define the term "DevOps" as I use it.There are other definitions that involve Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and standard operations policies, and you're free to use those as well, but this is the definition I'll use for this post: By DevOps I mean those tasks involved with deploying, managing and monitoring a Windows Azure (or hybrid) project.

Another caveat: This is a non-authoritative, non-comprehensive post. I'll include only an outline of the major tasks, not a complete manual on the topic. There's enough knowledge needed on this topic for at least a whitepaper or two, and perhaps even a book, but for the moment I wanted to get some information out to ensure you have something to work from until those come along.This is primarily a list of resources for a DevOps team.

Deployment

The first task after the design of the project is deployment. The deployment method depends on the type of solution; Windows Azure has the ability to run VM's, software code, or provide services that are already created (such as Active Directory).